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Monday, January 07, 2013

I haven't been riding that much for almost two months. I bought a CycleOps trainer and all, but that doesn't count, in my opinion. The last ride I did was a bike commute to work and that's it. Quite shameful for a guy running a blog on biking.

For 2013, my first ride was from Batangas City to Ibaan and back to dip in the Himamawo Spring. The boys discovered this last year and has been bragging about how they enjoyed it ever since. So when I heard that the first ride was going there, I jumped the gun and drove all the way to end of the expressway to see for myself this mystical swimming hole.

Since it was raining for more than three days, we opted for the longer route and rode on the highway instead of the backroads, which were quite muddy.

I was craving for Ibaan's famous tamales for quite some time, and so we took a detour to the public market and bought some. It was worth it! I think I ate five for the whole trip, while Domeng ate eight at least. Now that's Pinoy carbo-loading for you!

We went back to the Ibaan-San Jose road, and took a left turn on one small road about a kilometer after the STAR tollway. We saw the beautiful farmlands of Ibaan with a lot cows roaming around. From the cemented road, we made a left turn to a dirt path and pedalled our way between rice fields and mango plantations.

After about a couple of kilometers, we took a right and stopped by a mango tree to wait for the rest of the group. Our pace was so leisurely that we really enjoyed the ride.

When everyone was there, we made our way to a downhill section covered by a canopy of trees. And at the end, there it is - Himamawo Spring in its glory.

At first it was just Michael and Onad in the pool, but after some time, we were all in our cycling shorts taking a dip. All of us except for Domeng, who opted to watch over the bikes and take pictures while eating tamales.

The water felt very cold at first, but our bodies adjusted eventually. I think we stayed and dipped for about an hour before we geared up for the ride back.

Since it was lunch time, we all decided to treat ourselves with pancit guisado at Pangao before heading home.

The meal was scrumptious, filling, and very cheap as always.

I think we left for Batangas at about 12:35 in the afternoon.

All in all it was a nice first ride of the year. Looking forward to more adventures soon.